


Worth The Pain

by JTxBojan



Category: One Direction, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Cheating, M/M, Secret Relationship, request
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-21
Updated: 2012-10-21
Packaged: 2017-11-16 18:38:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/542598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JTxBojan/pseuds/JTxBojan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can’t remember the last time Harry came home at an acceptable time. At least not a time when he came home at an acceptable time and he wasn’t drunk off his ass and had just gotten back from shagging some girl in some bathroom at some club. You shake your head. You don’t understand why you keep doing this to yourself. You don’t understand why you keep letting him do this to you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worth The Pain

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by an anon on Tumblr, from where this has been re-posted.

Pain. It’s a familiar feeling. A far too familiar feeling, really. But you’ve gotten used to it by now. And it’s not that throbbing pain when you have a headache you’ve gotten used to. Or that stinging paper-cut pain either. No, it’s a different type of pain. It’s that deep, gut-twisting, soul-wrenching, intense pain that shoots straight to your heart and tears it into a billion teeny, tiny little pieces. That’s horrific, almost unbearable pain that tears you apart. That’s the pain you’ve gotten used to. That’s the pain that’s now so familiar to you. And you despise the fact that you feel that pain because you have been stupid enough to fall in love. 

Love. People speak of it as if it is such a wonderful thing. Ha! There’s nothing about love that’s wonderful. Not to you, at least. No, to you, love is just a horrible thing that tears you to pieces at every chance it gets. It used to be wonderful, you’ll admit that. Back when love was new and exciting. Back when it was just you and him. Love was wonderful then. But then it got bad. Really, _really_ bad. And it has become a feeling you despise almost as much as the pain the damn thing causes you.

You look up at the clock on the wall in your living room. 2:37am. Harry was supposed to be home at 11pm. But then again, you hadn’t really expected him to be. He never comes home when he tells you he will. In fact, there are actually times when he doesn’t come home at all. 

You can’t remember the last time Harry came home at an acceptable time. At least not a time when he came home at an acceptable time and he wasn’t drunk off his ass and had just gotten back from shagging some girl in some bathroom at some club. You shake your head. You don’t understand why you keep doing this to yourself. You don’t understand why you keep letting him do this to you. 

It’s been going on for about a year now. And the two of you have been together for about a year and a half. More than half of that time Harry has been going around and sleeping with random girls. At first he at least had the decency to try to hide it from you. But now he doesn’t even do that anymore. Now he sometimes even grabs a girl and makes out with her right in front of you when you’re out. Then he makes you watch as he grabs her hand and pulls her along into the bathroom to fuck her. And when he’s done, he always comes back out with a pleased grin on his face. 

You know why he does it. It’s because he’s said you have to keep your relationship a secret. And you don’t want that. You don’t want to have to hide from the world. You don’t have anything to be ashamed of. But apparently _he_ does. That or he’s just too scared of what people are going to think if the two of you come out. 

So this is what he does in some kind of fucked up attempt to deny who he is. He fucks around, and then after, he comes home and fucks you. Or he makes you fuck him. And every time, _every single time, you do it without question. Because you love him and you want him so badly, despite the fact that the son of a bitch is intentionally hurting you by cheating on you._

_He _knows_ that what he’s doing to you is killing you. He _knows_ how fucking much it hurts you when he sleeps with someone else. But he doesn’t seem to _care_. He doesn’t understand why it hurts you that he doesn’t want to come out and he doesn’t think it’s fair of you to get upset with him for it. So he thinks it serves you right that he fucks around with other people. And in a way, you guess it does. But that doesn’t make it any less painful. That doesn’t make it hurt any less whenever he comes home and you’re just able to tell that he’s just fucked some girl. _

_It’s killing you. It’s literately _killing_ you. It’s tearing you apart and it’s breaking you down like nothing else ever could. And you just can’t stand it anymore. You don’t have the energy or the strength to let this go on because if you try to fight your way through it any longer, it’s going to be the end of you. You’re not going to be able to survive it. You just know it. _

_So when the door finally opens and you hear Harry coming stumbling down the hallway at 3 in the morning, you stand up from the couch and you walk out of the living room._

_Harry stops dead in his tracks when he sees you and just stares at you for a long moment._

_“Boo-Bear… I didn’t know you were up.” He giggles innocently, as if he doesn’t know that you know where he’s just been._

_“Who was it this time, Harry?” You ask, your voice cold as ice._

_Harry blinks his eyes, obviously drunk as he stumbles towards you._

_“What are you talking about, Boo-Bear?” He says, draping his arms around your neck and leaning in, pressing a kiss to your lips. His breath reeks of cheap alcohol and you can’t help but frown at the scent of it._

_“Don’t play dumb with me, Harry. Who was it? Which girl did you fuck this time?” You continue as you push him slightly away. He stumbles, the alcohol in his system making it difficult for him to stay on his feet, but he regains his balance by reaching out and supporting himself by putting a hand against the hallway wall._

_“Oh… Just some girl I met at the club down the street… I can’t remember her name…” Harry giggles, and once again he stumbles over to you, his hands coming up to fist themselves in your shirt. Again, you push him away._

_“What’s the matter, Boo-Bear?” Harry asks, pouting as he looks at you and it sets your blood boiling that he actually has the nerve to act like he doesn’t know _exactly_ what the matter is._

_“What’s the matter? _What’s the matter?!_ The matter is the fact that you’re sleeping around with other girls while you’re in a relationship with me, Harry! The matter is that you have the nerve to tell me you love me, and then an hour later you’re in some bathroom at some club, screwing some girl you don’t even know the name of! The matter is that you _know_ that it hurts me, and you _know_ that it’s killing me! And to top it all off, you’re so ashamed of being gay and being with me that you’re making me hide our relationship from the world while you fuck around with girls in some kind of fucked up attempt to deny the fact that you’re gay! _That_ is what the matter is!” You shout, glaring at Harry who looked like he was instantly sobering up at your words. Harry doesn’t speak, he just stands there, looking at you and you don’t even know why you bother anymore. _

_“And the worst part is that you don’t even care, Harry. You don’t care about anyone’s feelings except for your own, despite the fact that you claim that you love me.” You say, and you shake your head. “I’m done. We’re over. I won’t do this anymore.”_

_Harry looks like he’s about to say something at that, but you don’t want to hear it. Instead, you just turn around, walk down the hallway and into your bedroom, slamming the door shut behind yourself._

_That night, you cry yourself to sleep as your heart, once again, breaks into a billion teeny, tiny pieces in your chest._

_~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~_

_It’s 10:45pm the next evening, and you’re lying curled up on the couch, watching some random movie you found on one of the TV channels. You haven’t been paying attention at all, so you have absolutely no idea which movie it is or what it’s about._

_Harry is out again. He was gone when you woke up at 12pm, which is kind of strange because he usually doesn’t go out before 6. But then again, you’re not surprised. He had left you a note on the kitchen table, where he had simply written that he would be home at 11pm._

_You had just snorted when you had read that because he said that every time he went out and he never came home until hours later, if he came home at all. Besides, you didn’t even care anymore. You had meant it when you had told Harry you were over the night before and you had no intention of wasting another second on wishing he would come home. You were done with it. You were done with letting him hurt you._

_You jump slightly when the doorbell rang and you blink your eyes a few times before you get up from the couch. Glancing up at the clock on the wall as you walk out of the living room, you notice that it was now 11pm. Sighing, you walk down the hallway and to the front door._

_“Who would be coming to visit this late?” You ask yourself, unlocking the door and opening it slowly. The sight that meets your eyes takes you by complete surprise._

_There, outside your door, dressed in a black tuxedo with a black bowtie around his neck, is Harry Styles, wearing the shyest smile you have ever seen on his face while holding a huge bouquet of red roses. He’s home exactly when he said he was going to be for the first time in a year and he’s sober._

_“Hi.” He says, quietly, almost a little nervously and you have to blink your eyes repeatedly to make sure you’re not just imaging this._

_It takes a second for you to clear your throat in order to be able to speak, but when you finally do, you really couldn’t have been more creative with your choice of words._

_“Hi.”_

_“ _Smooth, Louis. Real smooth._ ” You think to yourself._

_“Can I come in?” Harry asks, as if this apartment isn’t as much his as it is yours, but you’re still too surprised to really comment on it, so instead you just nod your head and take a step aside, allowing Harry to come into the hallway. You close the door behind him before you go back to staring at him in surprise._

_“What… What is this?” You ask, still struggling to believe that what you see is not just an illusion. Harry meets your gaze and lets out a sigh before he speaks._

_“This is me trying to apologise for the fact that I have been a complete and utter cunt to you.” Harry begins, and you actually can’t believe your own ears._

_“What?” You ask and you know that Harry can see that you’re confused and surprised. He sighs again._

_“We’ve been together for a year and a half, Louis, and for most of that time I have treated you like crap.” He goes on._

_“Harry…” You say, though you really don’t know what it is you’re trying to say. But that doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t let you interrupt._

_“No, let me say this.” He says. You shut up._

_“For a year I have used you. I’ve cheated on you, I’ve hurt you, I’ve lied to you, I’ve torn you apart and I’ve taken advantage of the fact that you have loved me too much to leave me. I have made you keep us a secret because of the fact that I’m too scared to tell the world and I know how much that has hurt you. I know that my behaviour and my way of treating you has broken you completely and I am so very sorry. You have no idea how sorry I am, Louis. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and I love you more than anything else in the world. I despise myself for doing this to you and I really don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive myself for it. You don’t deserve any of the bloody shit I have put you through and I will never be able to understand how on earth you have managed to stay with me for so long. You deserve so much better, and I don’t expect you to forgive me, or give me another chance, I just needed you to know how sorry I am for hurting you the way I have been hurting you.” Harry continues as he hands the roses to you, and you take them with, staring at them, then back at Harry with the most confused and surprised look on your face. When you don’t say anything, Harry continues._

_“I know you are probably not even going to consider this, and I don’t expect you to, but if you could ever, ever, find it in your heart to forgive me and give me another chance, I swear to you that I will treat you right. I can’t promise you that I won’t make mistakes, because God knows I’m not perfect in any meaning of the word, but I promise you that I will never intentionally hurt you again. I will never lay eyes or hands on someone else, and I will never lie to you again. I will never use you, cheat on you or take advantage of you ever again. I can’t tell you that I’m ready to tell the world about us yet, because I’m not, but that’s not because I am ashamed of you. You have no idea how proud I am of the fact that I once got to call you mine, and if you ever let me have that chance again, I promise you that I will never take you for granted. And one day, when the time is right and when we’re both ready for it, I’ll stand in front of the world and tell them all that you’re mine and that I love you with all of my heart. If you give me one last chance, I promise I will do my best not to ruin it and I promise you that I will love you, respect you and treat you the way you deserve to be loved, respected and treated. I’ll protect your heart with my life and I’ll never let anyone, including myself, break it again. I love you, Harry. And if I’ve lost my chance with you for good, then I understand. I just, wanted you to at least know how I feel and how sorry I am and that I would do anything to make it up to you if you’d let me.” Harry finishes, and it takes you a long moment to let his words sink in._

_You’re searching his eyes, trying to see if he’s lying to you again because you have always been able to see when he’s lying. But you can’t see any of the signs now. All you can see is pure and sincere honesty mixed with regret, remorse and pain for everything he has put you through. For the first time in a year, you see the man you fell in love with and it’s as if everything he has put you through this past year just disappears at the sight of the man you truly love so much._

_So you put the roses down on the small table by the front door, take a step closer to him and grab a hold of the collar of his shirt, pulling him against you and pressing your lips hard against his in a soul-searing kiss. He returns your kiss with passion as his arms come up to frame your face and when his tongue finds his way past your lips and into your mouth, it’s like you’re falling in love with him all over again._

_When you finally pull back for air after a long, _long_ moment, you’re both gasping and you let your foreheads rest together. You let another long moment pass before you can find your voice to speak._

_“Don’t you ever, _ever_ , break my heart again, Harry. Don’t you fucking _dare_ make me regret giving you another chance.” You whisper, and it’s obvious in your voice that you really mean what you’re saying. _

_Harry keeps his hands on your face as he gazes into your eyes, very gently shaking his head._

_“I won’t. I promise you I won’t.” He says, and his eyes are so full of honesty and sincerity that you _know_ he’s serious. _

_“Good.” You say. Then you lean in to kiss him again. And you kiss him and kiss him and kiss him until you’re completely exhausted and he has to carry you to bed._

_And when you fall asleep that night, pressed up against Harry and completely enveloped in his arms, you know that this is the start of something new. Something good. Something great. This is the start of you and Harry, and you know that this time, _this time_ , you’re going to do it right. This time, you’re both going to be happy. Together. Like you were supposed to be from the beginning._

_And you know that this was worth the pain._


End file.
